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Tuesday, September 23, 2003

"NANOTECH: Iron nanoparticles make single sweep of toxic waste"
A "universal elixir" brewed from nanoscale technologies is being promoted as a fast, cost-effective way to clean up hazardous waste. The curious marriage of high technology and heavy industry, researchers at Lehigh University said, would attack large-scale toxic wastes with injection wells that employ highly reactive nanoparticles of iron. The slurry would simultaneously neutralize and "fix" in place all known contaminants. Such an approach, the researchers said, contrasts with those of organizations like the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection's trillion-dollar Superfund, which clean up sites of contaminated soil and groundwater by treating them with agent-specific neutralizers, one shovel at a time.
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Text: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030922S0058